An attempt to scrub the gathering moss off some stones and help them keep rolling smoothly along ... Thoughts on information technology and anything else, by Tony Austin, after a lifetime in Science and then the IT industry.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

TIP – Add Safe Mode to the Boot Menu of Windows 10 (and 8)

Recently I had a PBSOD (pale blue screen of death) crash with one of my Windows 10 systems, and kept getting crashes within minutes every time after rebooting the system.

Somewhat annoyingly, starting with Windows 8 Microsoft removed the old boot menu options that we were used to with Windows 7 and previous versions. Run a search like this to see the complaints about this from the Windows user community.

It’s not a bad idea to modify the Windows boot settings in order to get back the capabilities of the old boot-time settings:

As good an explanation for doing so, in easy steps, can be found in this article at How-To Geek and I recommend that you do it on your systems too, in advance of being caught out.

UPDATE: For reasons best known to Microsoft, you cannot make this happen with Windows 10 Home edition. They really do make some weird decisions.

About Me

Tony Austin ... Trained in science and engineering, still tend to approach life from a scientist's or engineer's viewpoint, but over the years have picked up skills in sales/marketing, journalism and other non-technical areas. Taught Chemistry / Math / Science in high schools. Joined IBM Australia in 1970, retired in 1995, since then have been an "independent consultant" [an oxymoron]. So now I have over four decades in the IT business, still enjoying it enormously - except, that is, for the same silly mistakes being repeated time and time again in function and interfaces, won't we ever learn? ... Decided to retire from IT consulting at end of 2013 after 44 years in the industry, closed Asia/Pacific Computer Services then, but am still regularly writing technology articles as an industry observer.